Israel needs support in quest to defeat a monster

Jewish community members hold a vigil in memory of the those killed in Isreal by Hamas terrorists.

Last weekend, more than 1500 Palestinian terrorists swarmed from the Gaza Strip in a killing spree throughout Israeli towns, villages and kibbutzim along the border.

Organised and methodical, Hamas death squads carried out a massacre of hundreds of young revellers at a desert rave party. At the same time, dozens of other gangs rampaged through Israeli villages, prowling from house to house, indiscriminately butchering children, parents and grandparents. There was raping, torturing and beheading. Those who survived were taken hostage, and many lives are still unaccounted for. It is difficult to comprehend how savagery of such magnitude, which will reverberate in history, was perpetrated in a matter of hours.

I served my country in the Israeli Defence Forces for 12 years. I saw combat, and what it did to the men under my command; my compatriots and my friends. I carry these scars with me to this day. Nothing I have experienced in war compares to the images I have seen from Re’im, from Kfar Aza, from Ofakim, and from Be’eri – where Galit Carbone’s remains were found. My mind cannot comprehend the things done to infants, young children and whole families.

Let there be no doubt: these are war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is the type of depravity humankind last witnessed under the Islamic State’s reign of terror in places such as Sinjar, in northern Iraq.

Indeed, ISIS and Hamas share the same extremist Islamist ideology, the same utter indifference for human life, and the same unquenchable thirst for violence and barbarity in achieving their heinous goals.

We know the Hamas death squads who infiltrated Israel were on a suicide mission. Most of them are indeed dead by now. They committed these premeditated atrocities, knowing they would not return alive, and motivated by the belief that the slaughter of Jews would deliver them, in death, to paradise.

This is the creed of Hamas in action – the tangible results of a founding charter that glorifies anti-Semitism and has as its ultimate goal the destruction of the state of Israel and all Jews.

The terrorists who attacked Israelis on the weekend represent only a small portion of the active members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Iranian-backed terror faction within Gaza.

Both Hamas and PIJ are designated as terrorist organisations under Australian law, and in many other countries. These groups have recruited and trained fully fledged terrorist armies from within the Gazan population, which has been largely supportive of Hamas’s rule within the territory.

These killers did not emerge from a void. They were raised, indoctrinated and conditioned in a milieu where a hatred for Israel is the overarching theme of life under Hamas.

In 2005, Israel fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip, handing over complete control to the Palestinian Authority. In the subsequent elections held throughout the Palestinian Territories in 2006, Gazans voted overwhelmingly for Hamas, which enabled the group’s violent and complete takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Israel's Iron Dome air defence system intercepts rockets launched from Gaza.

For the past 16 years, the people of Gaza have suffered under the Hamas monster, which has channelled all available resources, including humanitarian aid, towards an all-consuming campaign of violence aimed at destroying Israel.

Hamas has appropriated the Gazan population as a bargaining chip and a human shield. In dealing with Hamas, there is no political solution to be reached, and there is no hope that Israeli restraint can somehow prevent bloodshed.

The terrorist infiltrators were aged in their early 20s. They have grown up under the Hamas chokehold of the past 16 years. They were indoctrinated in Hamas schools, socialised through its insidious presence outside the classroom, while their beliefs were shaped by Hamas and its Tehran-sponsored religious ideology. They were raised with constant exposure to incessant incitement to murder Jews and Israelis, and encouraged act upon their anti-Semitic impulses.

Their heroes were dead terrorists, so-called martyrs of the Hamas cause. Their qualms about risking their own lives to kill Israelis were assuaged by the promise of financial rewards for them and their families. When they succeeded, the streets of Gaza rejoiced and sweets and lollies were distributed in celebration. Even after Saturday, Gazans gathered in large numbers to celebrate Hamas’s barbaric attack, and to humiliate the hostages taken from Israel. The pictures of these events speak for themselves.

Israeli army soldiers walk near a self-propelled howitzer stationed near the border with Gaza in southern Israel.

When this war is over, the people of Gaza will have to choose. They will have to choose whether they continue to harbour Hamas, and if they will continue to sacrifice their brothers, sons and husbands for Hamas to squander in pursuit of its sickening, unattainable goal.

Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad started this war with the backing of the ayatollah regime in Iran. They forced this war on us. Israel has the right and obligation to defend its citizens and territory, and to take all necessary measures to protect its population. Israel has no choice, we have nowhere to retreat. We will confront and vanquish this beast on our threshold.

The world did not spare ISIS and al-Qa’ida, and it should not spare Hamas. Israel needs the continued support of all its friends, including Australia – now in our grief, and on the difficult road that lies ahead.

Amir Maimon is Israel’s ambassador to Australia.